This home page allows you to navigate around the site. You will find :
The CATALOGUE of books sold by PF, no longer sold directly (too difficult to manage), but which we hope will make you want to come and see us.
Our history, our credo and our battles in a section entitled WHO ARE WE?
The latest news from our WINDOWS. A photo of the current window and the main books on display. Older windows can be found below.
Our EVENTS (book releases, signings, meetings, exhibitions, etc.) in the bookshop, in the hut in the garden, in Mathilde Hatzenberger’s gallery on the 1st floor, or even outside the walls. Here too, older events can be found further down, or in the small Archives column.
Our CONTACTS. How to find us, how to get in touch with us, and all the practical information you need.
If you would like to be kept up to date with our major books, events and even our state of mind, please ask to be included in our newsletter.
The events at Peinture Fraîche follow each other and don’t resemble each other. This is deliberate. But whether it’s in the AMINIMA garden hut (copyright François Jacques), in the bookshop, in the 1st floor gallery loaned to the bookshop, or in the same gallery exhibiting Mathilde Hatzenberger’s artists, or even ‘outside the walls’, we try to show the good, the beautiful, the charming and the useful (and even the useless, because sometimes that’s nice too!).
So you’ll come across poets and poetesses, artists of all kinds, even the bad kind, architects dressed in black but building green, mountain philosophers and very urban shepherdesses, all advocates of the chatty and sensible consumption of wine from our neighbouring Cave Coop, cheese from Sœurs or Virginia’s diabolical matcha.
To visit Mathilde’s gallery outside event times, all you have to do is ask her (if she’s on site), or book by email at mh@mathildehatzenberger.eu.
Events will be publicised in the shop window, in our newsletter and on this page of the website.
The Peinture Fraîche bookshop has been in existence for 40 years. In December 2022 it moved to 9, rue Lesbroussart in Ixelles (a stone’s throw from Place Flagey).
Peinture Fraîche is an art bookshop: monographs by artists, theory books, themed books…
And even more specialised books: photography, architecture, graphic design, ceramics, Japanese art… All the categories are listed on the CATALOGUE page.
Since March 2024 and the end of the Ptyx bookshop (Au pied du mur, etc.), a selection of literature, various essays, philosophy and poetry has created a space for itself here.
Around 30% of our books are in English.
What do we sell?
Books! Big, thin, expensive, cheap, by publishers, artists, green, red, Italian print, Japanese or Swiss binding, full price or discount, always new, always beautiful, always intelligent.
In fact, we’re on the cutting edge of everything, and a bit intellectual without being snobbish. We’re rooted in what used to be called the Left: for culture (with a minister), for beauty (accessible to all), for raising standards (long live education). Anti-racist, feminist, full of pure and impure thoughts and an interest in the past as a gateway to the future (more difficult than radiant), we’re in favour of muzzling capitalism through legislation and taxation, against excessive consumption and in favour of trying to save our poor planet through science with a conscience and degrowth through sharing.
Easier said than done.